Tennessee won the Southeastern Conference regular-season women's basketball championship in Holly Warlick's first year as head coach and captured the SEC tournament in her second season.
In her third year, she has a chance to win both.
Kentucky's upset of South Carolina this past Sunday enabled Warlick's Lady Vols to share the league's regular-season crown with Dawn Staley's Gamecocks. South Carolina is the top seed at this week's tournament in Little Rock due to its 71-66 triumph over visiting Tennessee on Feb. 23, but the second-seeded Lady Vols are heading west with the goal of not playing second fiddle to anyone.
"We're looking forward to it," Warlick said Monday. "It's always a tough tournament, and it is anybody's championship. We're thankful we don't have to play until Friday."
The SEC women's tournament opens tonight at 7 Eastern, when 12th-seeded Florida (13-16, 5-11) faces 13th-seeded Auburn (12-17, 3-13). That game will be followed by 11th-seeded Vanderbilt (14-15, 5-11) against 14th-seeded Alabama (13-18, 2-14).
South Carolina (27-2, 15-1) and Tennessee (25-4, 15-1) are receiving double byes to Friday's quarterfinals, as are third and fourth seeds Mississippi State (26-5, 11-5) and LSU (16-12, 10-6).
All women's tournament games tonight, Thursday and Friday will be on the SEC Network. Saturday's semifinals will be on ESPNU, and Sunday's championship game will be on ESPN with a 3:30 Eastern tip.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.
All or nothing
A disappointing finish for Georgia and a disappointing season for Vanderbilt have resulted in the Lady Dogs and Commodores needing to win this weekend's event to advance to NCAA tournament play. Georgia has appeared in 20 consecutive NCAA tournaments under coach Andy Landers, while Vanderbilt earned an NCAA bid in each of Melanie Balcomb's first 12 seasons. Her Commodores are seeded 11th and would have to win five games in five days for the crown, while the Lady Bulldogs are the 10th seed and open Wednesday night against seventh-seeded Missouri. The Lady Dogs finished 18-11 in the regular season with a 6-10 league mark, but at one point they were 17-3 and 5-2 within the SEC. "It doesn't change our thought process," Landers said Tuesday. "You go to the tournament every year to win, and every year when you go, you know that when you do win that it enhances your resume. So it really isn't any different from years past."
Tying things up?
If second-seeded Tennessee can win this weekend's SEC tournament, the Lady Vols would have as many titles -- 18 -- as the rest of the league combined. How they stand: School Titles * Tennessee -- 17 * Vanderbilt -- 6 * Auburn -- 4 * Georgia -- 4 * LSU -- 2 * Kentucky -- 1 * Texas A&M -- 1 Note: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Missouri and South Carolina have never won the SEC tournament.
Award winners
The SEC announced its women's regular-season award winners Tuesday, with South Carolina's Dawn Staley and Mississippi State's Vic Schaefer co-coaches of the year. South Carolina junior guard Tiffany Mitchell was named player of the year, while guard/forward teammate A'ja Wilson was tabbed the top freshman. Mitchell and Wilson were first-team All-SEC selections, and they were joined in the nine-member group by teammate Aleighsa Welch, Tennessee's Cierra Burdick and Isabelle Harrison, Kentucky's Makayla Epps, LSU's Danielle Ballard, Ole Miss's Tia Faleru and Texas A&M's Courtney Walker.